BAY AREA JOURNALISM / Speculating On the Future / Analysts say S.F. is better served with 2 daily papers -- but have few words of praise for the Independent

Carolyn Said, Jonathan Curiel, Chronicle Staff Writers

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, March 18, 2000

2000-03-18 04:00:00 PDT San Francisco -- For the first time in 35 years, San Francisco will have two morning papers fighting it out for the attention of readers and advertisers -- and journalism critics around the nation say that's welcome news.

The changes in the newspaper world that came with yesterday's sale of the Examiner to San Francisco Independent publisher Ted Fang will redefine the Bay Area's journalism landscape and provide two widely divergent voices that critics had feared would disappear if the Hearst Corp. had closed the Examiner.

"San Francisco deserves some great newspapers, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's going to get them," said Bob Haiman, editor-in-residence at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The Chronicle, being bought by Hearst, and the afternoon Examiner -- being purchased by Fang's new ExIn LLC -- will go head to head for the morning market. Fang told The Chronicle yesterday that he intends to switch the Examiner to morning circulation, although many other aspects of the reborn Examiner remain unclear. Fang's enterprise still has to line up a staff, offices and a printing press. And he will have a hefty subsidy from Hearst to help out -- that was the price Hearst had to pay to sell the newspaper.

Although Hearst executives stressed that Fang is free to recruit from the Examiner ranks, a straw poll of Examiner staff turned up no one eager to work for the new management.

"The Independent has historically been staffed by recent college graduates, and I would anticipate that the new Examiner will be staffed by recent college graduates," said David Cole, editor and publisher of NewsInc, a biweekly newsletter about the newspaper business.

Fang might well hire a newsroom of raw recruits, but John Burks, acting chairman of the journalism department at San Francisco State University, said he nonetheless sees an opportunity for the new Examiner to be a significant voice in addressing the Bay Area's growing minority population.

Fang will be "one of the few owners of color of a major metropolitan daily in the United States," Burks said. He also said he thinks the new paper might do well to continue the Independent's strategy of focusing on neighborhoods. Fang "could attempt to do the world's first metropolitan daily neighborhood newspaper," he said.

Fang's Independent will continue as a separate, free paper printed three times a week.

Fang's paper unabashedly promotes the political candidates he likes. "The Independent believes in advocacy journalism," according to a full-page "open letter to the readers of the Independent," published last December 7, in the heat of the runoff campaign for district attorney between Bill Fazio and Terence Hallinan. Fang decidedly did not like Fazio.

INDEPENDENT CRITICIZED

Critics say the Independent publishes stories that attack and smear politicians and political candidates opposed by Ted Fang. The paper mounted a vituperative campaign against the sale of The Chronicle, and is equally vehement in its staunch support of Mayor Willie Brown.

"If (Ted Fang) runs the Examiner in any fashion similar to how he's run the San Francisco Independent, we can look forward to unwarranted smears, use of a major paper for what appears to be purely political purposes, and a really, really skewed version of reality on a daily basis," said John Mecklin, editor and news columnist at the SF Weekly. "I can only call it a journalistic horror story."

Last year, Fazio lambasted the paper for articles that he believed defamed him during his race against Hallinan. Fang chaired Hallinan's transition team after he was elected district attorney in the 1995 election.

Fazio was less critical yesterday, saying, "I wish them well. I hope that they are able to maintain the dignity of a San Francisco paper, which could in fact be a major paper."

'EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITY'

Whatever rabbits Fang pulls out of his hat to make the Examiner a going concern, he will have stiff competition from the far-richer Hearst empire. Many industry observers -- including staff members at both The Chronicle and the Examiner -- hope Hearst seizes the chance to turn The Chronicle into the shining jewel in its crown.

"This could be the last great newspaper crusade: to have a truly spectacular newspaper in San Francisco," said Phil Bronstein, executive editor of the Examiner, as he scrutinized a proof of yesterday's Examiner with the banner headline "SOLD!" splashed above a photo of the newsroom announcement a few minutes earlier.

"This is an old truism, but there is a lot of truth to it: Cities get the paper that their publishers pay for," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a Washington, D.C., think tank affiliated with the Columbia University School of Journalism.

"If the Hearst family has decided that because of long-standing community ties, it wants The Chronicle to be a great paper, then it could be," Rosenstiel said. "But if its goal in Year 1 is a certain profit margin and that's it, then that's the kind of newspaper it will get."

"Hearst has to be willing to really put some money into the institution and the salaries of the people who work there," said Cynthia Gorney, associate professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. "The obvious thing it ought to do is cover the Pacific Rim, have bureaus in Asia, Mexico, in the Northwest. It ought to be willing to really allow people to write and to commit the newsprint to let stories run at a length to say what they have to say."

DEAL'S INTRICACIES

Many observers were perplexed by the mechanics of a deal in which Hearst will be financially supporting its chief morning competitor. Some said a cynical explanation might be that Hearst chose to sell to Fang because he would provide an easier foe than other potential buyers, such as the Knight Ridder newspaper chain.

"I'd give anything to know what Hearst did to scare (Knight Ridder Chairman) Tony Ridder away so they could give it to somebody who looks to most eyes a lot less like a grown-up daily newspaper publisher," Gorney said.

"Oh, that's the one nobody reads," said Brian Antonio, a clerk at the Pacific Stock Exchange. "That's the one that goes right in the recycling bin."

Of course, besides getting William Randolph Hearst's flagship paper, Fang is getting another local icon. He will own the rights to the Bay to Breakers, the wacky footrace that annually attracts more than 70,000 contestants, many costumed, some nude.

That piece of news was greeted with a giant groan by the collective Chronicle and Examiner staffs. "Does that mean (Independent columnist) Warren Hinkle will have to run it?" quipped one employee.

HEARST NEWSPAPERS
While the Hearst Corp. has agreed to sell the San Francisco Examiner, it still will have a strong foothold in the newspaper business. A look at the average weekday circulation of selected Hearst daily newspapers for the six months ending Sept. 30, 1999:
.
San Francisco Chronicle*: 456,742
San Francisco Examiner: 107,129
Houston Chronicle: 542,414
San Antonio Express-News: 219,837**
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: 191,169
Times-Union (Albany, NY): 99,051
.
*Hearst's purchase of The Chronicle will become effective at the same time as its sale of the Examiner.
**Monday through Thursday only
Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations
Associated Press Graphic

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